Page 43 of The Naughty Virgin

“Exactly,” he confirmed, his blue eyes boring into mine. “I wanted you to tell the truth even though it was painful because we were swimming in dangerous waters baby. Think about what we were doing. We’d gone from fucking in a classroom to full-on dating, me cooking you dinner, making love to you, worshipping your beautiful body. This was no fling, this was no passing infatuation. Honey, we were doing couple things, acting like a couple and if people found out, everything would be ruined.”

“Does it make more sense now?” he asked gently. “It was better to cut off all contact so that if we were discovered, you could say honestly that you had no idea what happened. It was tough, but simpler this way.”

I shook my head, somewhat confused still. I couldn’t accept it because there were so many what-ifs and maybes, all these different branches on the decision tree, gnarled and loopy. So I shook my head, biting my lip, saving it for later. My brain cells were so fried at the moment that I just wanted to keep going, figure out more.

“So what’s different now?” I asked slowly. “Why are you back?”

And Stone smiled at me then, gentle, caring, blue eyes filled with emotion.

“Why do you think?” he rumbled low in his throat, a finger trailing down my cheek.

I paused for a moment, trying to ignore the shivers running down my spine.

“Well I’m clearly not a high school student anymore, and you’re not my teacher,” I said slowly. “But you’re still way older than me.”

“Eight years,” he interrupted.

“Eight years,” I repeated, nodding slowly. “Let me guess, it’s different because I’m in college now?”

And Stone shot me a wry grin.

“It’s more than that. Everything’s different baby,” he said pointedly. “You don’t live at home anymore, you’re not a little girl under the watchful eyes of your parents, you’re not a dependent anymore. You’re a single woman making your own way in the world, paying for your own life. And yeah, you’re eighteen, a college student so it’s not so freaky to be dating someone older. Especially since I’m not your teacher anymore.”

“Right, you’re not my biology teacher anymore,” I said slowly. “So what are you?”

And Stone was silent for a moment.

“What do you want me to be?” he asked softly, seriously, his eyes eating me up, swallowing me whole.

“I- I don’t know,” I said honestly, resisting the pull. “This has been so much to process in a short amount of time. You were gone, and now you’re back, and I’m just not sure,” I shrugged suddenly feeling hopeless.

“That’s true,” the big man rumbled, his eyes understanding as he trailed a finger across my jaw, the contact electric. “But what does your body tell you?”

And I shivered visibly then, pupils dilating, my breath coming fast at his closeness, drowning in the blue depths of him.

“My body says,” I panted a little, leaning in towards him, “that it wants you.”

“Then why don’t you focus on that for right now?” he murmured against my lips. “There have been a lot of changes recently, I’ll give you that. But why don’t you relax a little, let go with a man who loves you?”

And it was those words that turned the tide. I didn’t know what I thought about Stone’s abrupt departure, the lack of notice, the fact he’d left me high and dry. But now my alpha male was back, and he was telling me that he loved me, that he’d done it all for me, no less. And there was truth in his words. I was a bad liar, and it made sense to cut things off cleanly until we got into safer waters. So I was tempted, definitely, but there was one last question.

“Why do you keep saying this was all for me?” I asked, curious, my eyes quizzical. “You had just as much on the table as well, I mean you were going to lose your job. You lost your job,” I corrected.

And the big man laughed at that, sitting back a little before pulling me onto his lap, my curves pressed against his big form.

“Honey, the last person I was worried about was me,” he said, nipping at my ear gently as his hands ran up and down my thighs. Oh god, it felt so good, his touch warm, his fingers gentle, stroking along my sensitive flesh. Without meaning to I whined and twisted in his lap, my mouth instinctively turning towards him, begging for a kiss.

And the big man went for it, taking my lips authoritatively, his mouth firm, commanding, licking at the seam between mine before breaking our contact and coming up for air, his chest heaving, nostrils flaring.

“Fuck baby, I can’t believe you do that to me,” he growled, hauling me closer. “Do you feel that? Do you feel how hard my dick is just after one kiss?”

And I giggled because his rod was so huge and stiff pressing against my ass that it was like a steel bar against my curvy flesh. And I had every intention of helping him relieve that pressure, vent some of the steam, but first, I wanted an answer.

“Stone,” I said gently, looking up into his eyes, “what about you? Why weren’t you afraid for yourself?”

“Because I had nothing to be afraid of,” he growled, pulling me close again. “Honey, have you heard of Phillips Packaging? You know the Fortune 500 company?”

And I nodded slowly.

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